Sometimes it can be a matter of perspective. But the numbers speak for themselves. The tax and contribution gap, i.e. the share that still escapes compared to what the tax authorities and the National Tax Authority think they will collect, is still very high in Italy but is decreasing significantly, also because one of the elements on which tax evasion is based, such as VAT now has a trend Uniformly bearish thanks to the anti-fraud and technological tools in place.
Shrinkage of VAT evasion
The latest report on the unmonitored economy, tax evasion and contributions carried out by the committee formed by the Ministry of Economy, which works in parallel with the Structural Plan of the Budget (Psb), indicates that the latest available data relating to the year 2021 on what is escaping from the treasury is a total of 82.4 billion euros. Tremendous, again. However, the cup is half full, because if you look at the dynamics of the last five years (i.e. starting from 2017), the gap is decreasing: almost 26 billion euros.
Almost 70% of this decline is affected by the contraction of VAT evasion, which according to the report (the measurement system differs from that used in the EU) from 35.6 to 17.8 billion euros: in fact halved. However, since all signs must be understood, and not just encouraging signs, it must be emphasized that between 2020 (a very anomalous year because it was characterized by the most severe restrictions due to the pandemic) and 2021, the indicator regarding the extent of evasion of Irpef due from self-employed people and companies was On the rise again by nearly 1.5 billion.
Compliance recovery
Return to value added tax, as explained in the report of the committee headed by Nicola Rossi“The strong recovery in compliance in terms of reducing the undisclosed gap may be attributable to the anti-tax evasion measures undertaken between 2017 and 2021: the expansion of the split payment in 2017, and Introduction of electronic invoices for some subject categories in 2018 and its generalization in 2019.” There is also another aspect that may have an impact, which requires the traceability of payments and therefore has an impact in terms of conflicting interests. In fact, the propensity to evade in 2021 decreased by about 3.4 percentage points compared to 2020, Equivalent to about 2.8 billion. The report explains how this could be the result of “the introduction of measures to enhance the traceability of operations, such as the expansion of sending electronic payments to all operators and incentives for the use of electronic tools in transactions, as well as the expansion of construction bonuses.”
The announced increase in VAT has reduced the tendency to evade. However, to clear the field in advance of any controversy and avoid exploitation in a minefield, the committee specifies that “assessing the overall fiscal impact of the above-mentioned measures is not among the objectives of this report, which focuses exclusively on tax evasion.” ». Also because the impact of using tax credits or deductions resulting from those bonuses could then carry over to later years, for which data will only be available in the future. However, in the section devoted to the results achieved in the fight against tax evasion, there is a chapter explicitly devoted to fraud on tax credits for construction and energy works.
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